Improving fuel consumption rates of automobiles has been targeted in recent years for achieving better environmental friendliness and economical efficiency. Under this background, reduction of rolling resistance has been pursued in tires. To this end, there have been attempts to reduce the number of components of a tire and/or weights of these components.
Reducing an amount of rubber for use in a tire is effective for reducing weight of the tire, and Patent Literature 1 proposes to form a recessed portion by thinning an outer surface of the tire inward in the tire axial direction that is located between the maximum width position of the tire and a rim separating point at which the outer surface of the tire starts to separate from a rim flange, to reduce an amount of rubber for use by the volume of the recessed portion in side rubber located in the vicinity of a bead portion (where a relatively large amount of rubber is needed) and thus, to reduce the whole weight of the tire accordingly.